The lift reached the penthouse floor and the doors whooshed open.
No one was there.
Sighing, Salome sagged back against the wall, relief flooding through her. She couldn’t have borne for anyone to see what her shame kept telling her must be obvious, with her tangled hair, her bruised mouth, her over-bright eyes, her disorganised clothes.
Though any relief was short-lived.
‘You were saying?’ Mike drawled. He had moved to stand with his back against the open doors, his arms folded, his harsh gaze merciless in its derision. Looking at him now, Salome found it incredible to believe that a minute ago she had been wanting him. At this very second she hated him, hated him for being able to make her feel what he made her feel, without love or caring. It was cheap and horrible and tacky. And almost beyond comprehension!
She had known earlier in the evening she was madly attracted to him, had even fantasised about making love to him, but the reality had been much more shocking. The speed of her surrender; the intensity of her feelings—the madness of it all!
All Salome could think of to explain it was that she must have changed, sexually. She had read of women like that, who became more interested in the physical as they matured, who started looking for sex for sex’s sake, whose taste in men became overtly pointed in one direction. Her mother was certainly evidence of that theory, she thought bitterly. Perhaps she had indeed inherited the same weakness. It had only taken a man like Mike to bring it out in her.
An awful thought surfaced. Perhaps she had projected this new self to him this afternoon. Perhaps that was why he had asked her out in the first place, because he sensed this new vulnerability and frustration. Her mind flew to those earlier moments today when she had been agitated and not known the reason. Now she had to accept that she had probably been wanting sex even then!
Salome shook her head, appalled. This was the last straw, being plagued by urges she couldn’t control. Ralph’s treachery had stripped her of most of her self-esteem and respect. Now it seemed she was going to finish the job all by herself!
No way, she thought with a desperate burst of defiance. No way!
Dragging in a deep breath, Salome picked up her handbag and tucked it under one arm. She righted her case and, without so much as a word or a glance, marched determinedly from the lift.
With a predatory swiftness Mike’s hand shot out to grab her wrist, swinging her round, making her drop both bags as she almost fell. ‘I’m not letting you off that easily,’ he snarled, hauling her upright in front of him. ‘Oh, I realise you weren’t letting me, Michael Angellini, make love to you in there in the dark. I was just a male mouth, a male hand, a male body. And now that the lights are on you’ve changed your mind. But that’s too bad, darling, because I haven’t changed mine. You’ve damned well teased me for years, and you’re not going to do it again tonight!’
She stared at him, green eyes widening with shock. And indignation. ‘“Teased ” you?’ she repeated, stunned. ‘I’ve never teased you!’
He gave a snort of disgust. ‘Oh, no? Then what would you call the way you acted every time you came into my restaurant? There you’d be, half dressed and all over your husband like a rash, yet all the time making sure I was noticing what you were doing, flicking those seductive green eyes at me, that luscious mouth of yours always curved back in a sweet but treacherously knowing smile. Did it give you a kick to go home leaving me actually aching with frustration? Well, did it?’
The hand on her wrist tightened to yank her hard against him, his head dipping till his mouth was terrifyingly close. ‘You knew I wanted you from the first moment we met,’ he grated out in a low, hard voice. ‘You used that fact to play a cat-and-mouse game with me, probably to arouse yourself so that you could stomach going home to sleep with a man you didn’t love. But you made a mistake, Salome. You might be a cat, but I’m certainly not a mouse—something you’re soon going to learn!’
Salome swallowed, her eyes blinking, her mind being bombarded with the most incredible and appalling thoughts. God in heaven, had he really wanted her all along? Even worse, had she somehow recognised this, and unconsciously responded even back then? Had Ralph been right about her anger being a substitute for desire? Shakily she recalled how she’d used to look forward to going to Angellini’s, despite the derision she was subject to there. Then afterwards, in the car, she would definitely be on edge. And, though she wasn’t sure, she suspected those had been the nights she couldn’t sleep, tossing and turning till dawn.
Salome groaned and shook her head. If this was so, then her marriage had been a total sham on both sides. Not only had Ralph not loved her, but she hadn’t really loved him either!
Everything inside her screamed out that this couldn’t be true. She had loved Ralph. She had! In desperation, her mind focused on the one thing she could throw back in her tormentor’s face. ‘You said you had never wanted me! You said—’
His laughter cut her off. ‘I said that I had never wanted to take you to bed, to sleep with you! And I didn’t. A bed, I never envisaged, and sleeping was hardly what I had in mind. Hell, it was all I could manage some nights not to drag you out into a back room and take you there up against the door!’
All colour fled from Salome’s face. ‘You don’t mean that. You couldn’t—’
‘I do and I could,’ he growled. ‘You want proof?’
‘Dear God, don’t!’ she moaned, her eyes pained and imploring.
‘Oh, for pity’s sake stop looking at me like that!’ he flung at her. ‘Hell, I won’t force you, though, damn it all, you probably deserve it!’ With that, he flung her away from him. ‘Go on, get out of here. Go. You’re not worth it!’
Stunned, shattered, Salome stood there for a moment, dazedly rubbing her throbbing wrist. Mike snatched up her case and her handbag, and shoved them into her hands. ‘Here...now run, woman, while you’re still in one piece!’
Turning blindly, she stumbled down the corridor to her door. Somehow, she located the keys, and eventually found herself inside, leaning with her back against the door. Then she slid down to the floor and started to cry.
Much later, her heart heavy, her senses dulled by physical and emotional exhaustion, she stripped herself off and stood robotically beneath a tepid shower. Too tired to unpack and find a nightie, she climbed naked between the sheets of the double bed in the main bedroom, lifting a weary hand up to snap off the bedside lamp, plunging the entire place into darkness.
But before her mind could embrace the mental darkness of sleep, it drifted inexorably back to that moment when Mike had threatened to prove his passion for her and she had groaned for him not to.
A further groan broke from her lips, and she turned to bury her face in the pillow. For now that she was alone, now that Mike was no longer a menacing presence, Salome could admit that the new, sexually aware part of herself had wanted him to prove it, however and wherever and as often as he wished, this realisation having shocked her sufficiently into making one last desperate plea. Fortunately, he had been decent enough to answer that plea.
So for now she was safe. For now... But what of tomorrow, and the next day, and the next?
Mike wanted her, and he was not a man who would give up easily. It might take weeks for this penthouse to be sold. And all the while Mike would be living next door.
The only solution, she finally accepted, was to move back home with her mother. A wave of depression swamped Salome. Why was all this happening to her? All she’d ever wanted in life was to be secure and reasonably happy, and to avoid the sort of emotionally tormented and draining existence she’d had to endure with Molly during all her growing-up years. Now, just as she was getting over the harrowing effect of her divorce, she’d been thrown back into a maelstrom of mental